7/28/2010 @ 3:05PM

How Data Will Build The Cities Of The Future

For the first time ever, more than half of us are city dwellers. By 2050 that number will be 70%. We are adding the equivalent of seven New York Cities to the planet every year. This unprecedented urbanization is a sign of economic and societal progress, especially in places such as China and in other emerging markets. But the scale and nature of the challenges facing cities mean that business as usual is not a viable option.

More than ever before, the tradition of manufacturing as the key driver of urban economic growth is giving way to an economy based on brains and creativity. Competitive differentiation today is more likely to be based on a workforce’s ability to foster innovation than on traditional strengths such as the exploitation of natural resources, physical labor or manufacturing prowess. In fact, according to a new IBM study, the demand for knowledge workers is expected to almost double by 2020 in maturing economies, while the demand for low-skilled employees is expected to decline dramatically.

To prosper, cities will need to attract those highly skilled employees and create environments that foster knowledge-intensive businesses. They will have to engage in battles for talent for which many are ill-equipped, and focus more on the quality of jobs created–and the people who choose a city to create and fill those jobs–than on the mere quantity of new jobs.

In the U.S., cities face an environment of shrinking municipal budgets and fiscal austerity. The good news, however, is that they already have much of what they need to become more livable while delivering cost savings and improved services to citizens.

Much of it comes down to one thing: data. Cities can now, for the first time, make sense of the oceans of data that they collect and turn it into intelligence that can empower city officials to take positive action, especially in four crucial areas: education, transportation, public safety and health. Here are examples of how:

Education

To attract, retain and cultivate talent, cities must provide access to quality primary and secondary education, as well as lifelong learning for a highly skilled workforce.

The paradox is that as the demand for and cost of education increases, budgets to support it are in most places static or shrinking. To manage the shortfall, cities are using information technology to take new approaches to teaching and learning, to increase access and to reduce costs.

For example, Mobile County Public Schools, Alabama’s largest school district, is applying data analytics to track student performance, identify at-risk students and enable teachers to address and resolve issues before they escalate–all in real-time–so they can prepare students with the right skills and reduce dropout and truancy rates.

Transportation

Well-managed, accessible public transportation attracts workers to cities, brings commuters to and from work and moves goods from production to consumption. One main challenge for cities is traffic congestion, which lowers air quality, creates noise pollution, diminishes public safety and incurs an annual cost of $87 billion in wasted fuel and lost productivity in the U.S. alone. Many cities are sitting on mounds of untapped data that could help them improve their transport systems.

Officials in Singapore, for instance, are receiving real-time data through sensors embedded in roadways. Using sophisticated software to analyze the data, they are able to predict traffic flows with up to 85% accuracy. A national smart card system has meanwhile enabled Singapore’s Land Transport Authority to optimize routes and schedules, reducing congestion, increasing the use of public transit and cutting revenue leakage by 80%.

Public safety and emergency response

Evidence shows a strong correlation between a city’s overall level of safety and the quality of its talent pool, as measured by its education, skills and creative and innovative capacity. New York is an example of a city that has been using advanced technologies and innovative approaches to anticipate and prevent crimes, better respond to emergencies and provide enhanced citizen services.

New York City’s Real Time Crime Center can comb through millions of pieces of information–criminal complaints, arrests, 911 calls and criminal records–to quickly identify suspects, detect crime patterns and transmit information to police officers on the street via handheld devices. Crime has dropped 27% since 2001, and New York is now one of the safest large cities in the U.S.

To prevent deadly ruptures of blood vessels in the brain, the Mayo Clinic is using a new procedure that combines analytics technology with advanced imaging to help radiologists detect aneurysms with far greater speed and accuracy. A compelling example of how data analytics can save lives, the project has yielded a 95% accuracy rate, compared with 70% for manual interpretations.

Just as a physician is trained to view a patient as more than a collection of organ systems and body parts, urban leaders must evaluate each of these four core areas as a dynamic network of interconnected systems, to identify root causes of problems and optimize the overall performance of their cities. A well- functioning transportation system doesn’t just reduce congestion. It reduces carbon emissions, stress and traffic accidents, and it frees up more time for people to work or relax.

Every city has a different vision for what it wants to become: a safer city, perhaps, or a more sustainable city or simply a smarter one. As cities around the world have already shown, one way to get there is by tapping into the treasure troves of data already at their fingertips. City leaders are altering their investment strategies from attracting and supporting mass labor pools to creating systems of services designed to optimize the city around highly skilled, innovative citizens and communities, as well as knowledge-intensive businesses.

By putting their data to work to better understand, predict and respond intelligently to citizens’ behavior and changes in demand, cities will make themselves more efficient, flexible and positioned to thrive in a talent-based economy.

James Cortada is the public sector leader of the IBM Institute for Business Value.